Why whole fields fatten good doers
A native pony, cob or any easy-keeping horse turned out on a whole field in spring does what his metabolism was designed for in hard country: he eats selectively and constantly, takes the sweetest regrowth first, and converts a generous grass supply into body fat with alarming efficiency. The result — a cresty neck, fat pads, and laminitis risk shadowing every sunny week — is not greed, it is thrift. Strip grazing answers the problem without removing turnout: the horse still walks, grazes and lives like a horse, but the field itself becomes the ration measure, dispensed a strip at a time.
Setting up the strip: front fence, back fence
The kit is simple: electric tape or rope, plastic posts, and an energiser, arranged as two parallel movable lines across the field. The front fence marks the edge of the fresh strip the horse may eat; the back fence, moved up behind him, closes off the ground already grazed so it can rest and regrow rather than being nibbled to the crown in the horse's favourite spots. Start with the horse in a small section at the field's least lush end, with water and shelter inside the strip system or accessible from it — a horse who has to cross the fence line to drink will eventually test the fence to do it. Introduce the routine when the horse is hungry enough to respect the tape and settled enough not to charge it.
Moving the line: the daily rhythm
Each day — or morning and evening for a very good doer on rich spring grass — the front fence advances a short distance, giving a fresh band of grass roughly matched to what the horse should eat in that period, while the back fence follows a few days behind. Moving little and often beats a big weekly move, which just creates a feast day followed by a hungry, fence-testing horse on bare ground. Advance onto grass in the morning, when the sugars in the grass tend to be at their lowest, rather than late on a sunny afternoon. Judge the amount by what is left: the strip should be eaten down evenly, with no lush patches rejected and no ground poached bare by a horse kept too long in one place.
Watching the horse, not just the grass
The strip is a tool; the horse's body is the scoreboard. Weigh-tape weekly and feel the neck crest and ribs with your hands, because the aim is slow, steady loss or a held weight — never a sudden drop, which brings its own dangers for an overweight horse. Keep hay thinking in reserve: in high-risk weeks, time on a bare strip with hay can replace grass hours entirely for a horse with a laminitis history, and any horse who comes in footy, with a raised pulse in the feet or a reluctance to turn, comes off grass and gets a vet call the same day. Recording fence moves, grazing hours and weigh-tape results on the horse's KinsLe profile under Care Teams means whoever moves the fence — owner or covering help — works to the same strip plan and can see the weight trend it is producing.